If you want to be successful, many experts and life-hackers say you should wake up at 6 am, take a cold shower, exercise, meditate, journal and brainstorm, review and set goals, read news and industry sites, consume inspiring content, eat a protein-rich breakfast

Whew. That’s a lot to accomplish before 8 am.

I’m not sure when the dogma of morning routines began to spread, but suddenly, these mile-long checklists are everywhere?—?especially in the startup world.

Routines can be great, but I think there’s a misplaced emphasis on morning.

Everyone has different peak hours. If you want to enhance your productivity, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, or if you go for a run at 6 am or 6 pm.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” That is the motto of a photojournalist. It is their objective to produce direct, truthful and bold images that tell the stories for those who have no voice.

According to Mark M. Hancock, a professional photojournalist, “is a visual reporter of facts. The public places trust in its reporters, to tell the truth. The same trust is extended to photojournalists as visual reporters.This responsibility is paramount to a photojournalist. At all times, we have many thousands of people seeing through our eyes and expecting to see the truth. Most people immediately understand an image.”

Photojournalists are doing really a great job over the world for humanity, they are working for peace, for human rights, for raising humanity problems and issues, for pointing out the people living below the bottom line of poverty, for raising awareness about educational and child labor issues and much more… Our today’s post is about Inspirational Documentary and Photojournalism Photos. In this post, we showcase 35 powerful, touching and emotional photos that do not just display state of affairs but also tell a story.

We express sincere appreciation of the hard work of all photojournalists who are working for humanity, sometimes risking their lives for the sake of their duties and responsibilities. This article is a tribute to all of them and their accomplishments and works.

Photojournalism & Documentary Photos

Rwanda, June 1994. Hutu man mutilated by the Hutu ‘Interahamwe’ militia, who suspected him of sympathizing with the Tutsi rebels. About the image, Nachtwey says his specialty is dealing with ground level realities with a human dimension. He feels that people need photography to help them understand what’s going on in the world, and believes that pictures can have a great influence on shaping public opinion and mobilizing protest.

World Press Photo of the Year: 1994 James Nachtwey, USA, Magnum Photos for Time.

In this picture, Lurlena cries in the back of the family car after losing the contest for Carnival Princess at her school. She spent the day getting ready, with a new white dress and new shoes. The winner was decided based on whose parents bought the most tickets, and Lurlena’s family could only afford eight dollars worth.

Sally Mann

Tibetans believe, once in their life, a pilgrimage to Lhasa is of exalted purpose and moral significance. Therefore, we see people like this, especially in spring and autumn, on their journey of faith, sometimes thousands of miles long, kowtowing every few steps.

Even during the Arirang Mass Games in North Korea, the ultimate expression of the state ideology, an individual can still sometimes stand out from the crowd and break free of the collective. If only just for a moment. (Photo and caption by Brendyn Zachary)

“On my second day visiting the astounding Iguazu falls on the Brazilian side I was forced to change to my telephoto lens as my wide angle had been damaged by the water vapor. In had rained solidly for 10 days prior to my arrival and so the falls were at their most spectacular. Standing on the elevated viewing platform I was able to shoot this school group who stood transfixed, emphasizing the incredible size of the falls. (Photo and caption by Ian Kelsall)”

“I took the photo while on my one-month stint in Malawi Africa where I mainly worked in orphan day-care centres, also visiting Mulanji Hospital. The photo was taken from the Mulanji Hospital four-wheel-drive ambulance, travelling on the extremely rough roads from village to village, visiting the sick who were unable to reach the hospital.” Photo taken by Cameron Herweynen.

This picture of a five year-old gypsy boy was taken on New Year’s Eve 2006 in the gypsy community of St. Jacques, Perpignan, Southern France. For Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the men would gather in the Café in their best suits to drink and dance while their wives would prepare dinner at home. It is quite common in St. Jacques for little boys to smoke.

A woman holds her child, blackened by carbon dust. His nose bleeds due to infections caused by exposure to dust and pollution during play in the workshop in Korar Ghat by on the outskirts of Dhaka. Many women bring their children along so they can look after them while working.

Hhaing The Yu, 29, holds his face in his hand as rain falls on the decimated remains of his home in the Swhe Pyi Tha township, near Myanmar’s capital of Yangon (Rangoon), on Sunday, May 11th, 2008. Cyclone Nargis struck southern Myanmar a week ago leaving millions homeless and has claimed up to 100,000 lives.

Culture

A long line of visitors forms in front of Sandra Gil outside the Krome Detention Center in Miami where her husband, Oscar Gonzalez, is being held. On the morning of November 8, Immigration and Customs Enforecment (ICE) officers arrested the family at their home. They detained Gonzalez and released Gil with her son, American born Joshua Gonzalez, 5, with orders to leave for Colombia within weeks, The family was denied asylum after seven years living and working legally in teh country.

Sitting alone on a little place surrounded by cars traffic. Self-isolation. Waiting for nothing. He talked to me for about an hour. Of a lost life. An ordinary life like mine, like many others. And now…

Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, the world’s first man to fly with a jet-powered fixed-wing apparatus strapped to his back, flies during his first official demonstration, on May 14, 2008 above Bex, Switzerland. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)

Final construction at the Maponya mall in Piville township, Soweto. The 650 million Rand mall is one of the largest shopping centers in South Africa, and its opening is a sign of the commercial awakening of Soweto.

Child labor is not a new issue in Bangladesh as children here remain one of the most vulnerable groups living under threats of hunger, illiteracy, displacement, exploitation, trafficking, physical and mental abuse. Although the issue of child labor has always been discussed, there is hardly any remarkable progress even in terms of mitigation. 17.5 percent of children aged 5-15 are engaged in economic activities. Many of these children are engaged in various hazardous occupations in factories.

This image was taken about one month after the earthquake in Pakistan. People were still coming down from the mountains trying to find shelter and were suffering from trauma. Winter was on the way and the need for shelter was urgent. This father with his child had been collecting food. I spent ten days in Balakot documenting the situation after the quake. People were still digging for their family members.

Kerby Brown rides a huge wave in an undisclosed location southwest of Western Australia July 6, 2008, in this picture released November 7, 2008 by the Oakley-Surfing Life Big Wave Awards in Sydney. Picture taken July 6. (REUTERS/Andrew Buckley)

The head of a male student, still alive, trapped under the debris is pictured at the scene of the church school that collapsed on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, November 7, 2008. At least 30 people were killed when the three-story La Promesse school building collapsed while class was in session and some of the walls and debris crushed neighboring homes in the Nerettes community near Port-au-Prince. (REUTERS/Joseph Guyler Delva)

Wells felt indignant that the same publication that sat on his picture for five months without publishing it, while people were dying, entered it into a competition. He was embarrassed to win as he never entered the competition himself, and was against winning prizes with pictures of people starving to death.

And of course the afghan girl, picture shot by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. Sharbat Gula was one of the students in an informal school within the refugee camp; McCurry, rarely given the opportunity to photograph Afghan women, seized the opportunity and captured her image. She was approximately 12 years old at the time. She made it on the cover of National Geographic next year, and her identity was discovered in 1992.

Sichuan Earthquake

A man is crying while he flips through a family album he found in the rubbles of his old house.

From time to time I need to get my thoughts clear. When I’m feeling stressed by deadlines, clients, people, life in general, all I have to do is look at a beautiful landscape with all the colours of the sun to it. Whenever I can, I try to experience these views in real life, but unfortunately vacations only last so long. So for the rest of the year, photography has to contribute to my wellbeing. The following 60 hand-picked photos are my personal favourites for the coming winter season. I hope they can keep you in good mood too.

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From time to time I need to get my thoughts clear. When I’m feeling stressed by deadlines, clients, people, life in general, all I have to do is look at a beautiful landscape with all the colours of the sun to it. Whenever I can, I try to experience these views in real life, but unfortunately vacations only last so long. So for the rest of the year, photography has to contribute to my wellbeing. The following 60 hand-picked photos are my personal favorites. I hope they can keep you in good mood too.

Fantastic Photographers Catch Fantastic Views

The following gallery contains 60 fantastic photos taken by fantastic photographers from all around the world. We have photos from Indonesia, India, China, and Russia as well as some from Africa, Europe, and America. The guiding line, the connection between all of these pictures is the lighting the sun provides. Depending on where in the world the photo was taken, the lights seem warmer or colder, brighter or blunter. Different seasons reflect different lighting.

Our gallery provides you with additional information, such as who the photographer is, where the photo was taken and where we’ve seen it first. For every photographer, I added a link to the portfolio, where you can find even more fantastic pieces of his or her work.

So have fun with this huge gallery and get inspired and recharged. May the sun lighten up your heart and soul!

The End: I hope you like what you’ve seen here. Click over to the portfolios of your favourite artists from this post and help them get up and running on the social photography platforms they have chosen. See you next time…

These are special times. Time to look into the crystal ball, to predict the upcoming trends of 2018. Adobe is up first.

Of course, you have to create demand when you’re a provider of stock material, like Adobe Stock. In contrast to color mixers like Pantone, you can’t just invent an Image of the Year and push it into the market. Thus, we can’t avoid a particular closeness to reality, and we should not forget that subjectivity is a significant factor in every trend prediction.

The image experts of Adobe have come to the realization that there are six specific groups of topics with the potential to assert themselves as visual trends in 2018. In my opinion, Adobe’s suggestions are not completely absurd and have a certain charm to them.

I should add that the Adobe Stock team will deal with each of the trends for two months of the upcoming year. Just like in the past, there will be cooperations with famous, and less well-known artists, contributing to their respective interpretations of the topic. This is sure to be interesting.

Silence and Solitude

Let’s start the year by looking into the theme “Silence and Solitude.” Mindfulness is a desirable goal amongst creative workers. Although self-contemplation does not necessarily require solitude, a certain degree of seclusiveness makes the target easier to reach. I’m curious to see what the Stock artists have to add to that.

The Fluid Self

I have a very clear idea of the characteristics that I want to define myself through. These are quite conservative criteria. However, especially in the creative area, with many colleagues, this is not the case anymore. Identity blurs, flows, and changes. How can we represent that visually?

Multilocalism

When I started working with computers in the eighties, I never thought I would experience the birth of multilocal. By now, I have become a digital nomad myself. With the internet, the entire world has changed into a village, and us, who move through it professionally, are experiencing this very eminently. My colleagues are spread all around the globe, and so are my customers. In the nineties, this was near inconceivable.

Creative Reality

The profound shift that societies all around the world are exposed to, due to digitalization, is expressed in different ways. Some respond with fear, protest, and retrogressivity, others see the opportunity, and actively design the future. Others flee into alternative realities and create dream worlds and utopias.

History and Memory

History can be a source of inspiration if you don’t halo it like some diehards like to do. As the histories of different cultures do not parallel each other since progress is made at different paces, the intersection points result in interesting effects, that can be visualized.

Touch and Tactility

Nowadays, we touch the touchscreen more often than our loved ones. And shortly, even this touch is likely to become redundant. When everything works without touch, how does the human, a gregarious social animal, work? Will there be new interhuman relations, or will we get used to being robot-like to a certain degree?

Conclusion: Adobe Stock’s Got a Nice Roadmap

Each of the themes listed above will be looked into for two months of the following year. At the end of 2018, we will have a genuinely complex image collection in the different areas. Whether these are topics you would have chosen or not, at least it’s safe to say that Adobe Stock won’t copy and post the next boring business clown pic. That’s an advantage in itself.

Every year, Christmas time catches us completely off guard. Wasn’t it summer just a short while ago? Now, it’s only one more week to Christmas. Though the Advent season was short this year, we can say whatever we want to, we have overslept making and sending out neat Christmas cards to our clients and acquaintances.

Not all hope is lost. In theory, you could even order an ugly sweater over at Amazon, and take a selfie in front of your Christmas tree. Send your Christmas card via WhatsApp, for a change.

That doesn’t seem professional, though. Given the time constraints, I don’t recommend a complex creative phase, and the shoemaker shouldn’t have the best shoes, either. So, why don’t you rely on meaningful photos that address the theme in a subtle and modern way, and use them as the basis of your Christmas card?

We took a look around and found a few that we can recommend to you. All shown images can be used for free, as they are under the license CC0. You don’t even have to mention the originator, although you are free to do so. We’ve focused on selecting fresh images. We don’t want you to use an image that has been used ten years ago.

From a close-up of a wasp to a herd of wild horses: Everyone loves beautifully composed photos of majestic wildlife. An adventurous journey to different species and locations. We couldn`t pick a favorite. Here are 20 striking Wildlife Photography examples for your inspiration.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to learn a new skill. Well, here are 20 ways to learn more faster. Develop your photography skills to mastery in only one day. We`ve collected some of the best photography video tutorials we could find. Great Photographers you should know. Enjoy!

Fstoppers focused on photography lighting, gear reviews, business tips, behind the scenes, photo tricks and tips and tutorials. It`s a great community of photographers and other creative professionals. Take a look at The Stun Gun Photo Shoot Behind the Scenes.

Ted Forbes has a tremendously deep passion for photography. And he likes to share videos about famous photographers, photography techniques, composition, the history of photography and more, e.g. techniques for metering night scenes.

If you are looking for DIY photography tutorials explaining tips, tricks and hacks, COOPH is the right choice. It`s “The Cooperative Of Photography”: an incredible dose of photographic inspiration. 7 Simple Photography Hacks is fun to watch.

Karl has a knack for explaining photography in an entertaining and understandable way. With over 15 years experience he likes to demonstrate photography techniques in the simplest way possible. One Day Fashion Shoot is great!

Toby wants to help you to be a better photographer by helping you find the gear you need and the know-how to use it. So his channel is all about tripods, cameras, lenses and other photography equipment. Exposure Explained Simply – Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO is one of his tutorials.

Using mobile phones, these artists are bringing highly unusual weather to the cities of the world. Neon blue clouds and purple fog have descended on urban centers in these seven luminescent dreamscapes. While you might think that these effects require sophisticated skills in one of the powerful pixel editors, such as Photoshop, we are about to surprise you. Read on.

The artists below all used the free mobile photo editor, PicsArt, to create double exposures that combine clouds with pictures of skylines. Though they’re using the same simple features, each artist used a unique approach to putting their creative stamp on this psychedelic trend.

If you also have a creative itch to scratch, check out their excellent images and draw inspiration from their various techniques.

Now for the goods. Hop aboard a purple cloud and set course for neon paradise.

1. Miami in the Clouds

By keeping the clouds low, this artist created a perspective like we’re descending from the sky and breaching the clouds to see a vibrant city sprawling below.

2. A Radioactive Glow

Increasing the contrast to accentuate bright patches of concentrated light can make a city look like it’s so radioactive that it’s glowing.

3. Mist Rising from the Streets

Playing with different cloud formations and how they fit over a shot can yield surprises. The clouds in this edit look more like steam rising from the streets.

4. Light Painting with Time-Lapse

The ribbons of light created by cars in a time-lapse are ideal for breaking up space in your images and cutting bright lines through the thick-colored mist.

5. A Neon Sunset

This artist used the colors that were already in the original shot. Here the orange sunset transitions perfectly between the purple on the bottom and the blue on top.

6. Lights in a Color Storm

There’s a simple reason nighttime photos look amazing in neon weather… city lights! Bonus points for reflections in a nearby body of water.

7. Warhol Weather

This image shows how harsh contrasts in brightness and color tone can add a scrappy pop art veneer to any dreamscape.

Want to make a dreamscape of your own? The PicsArt app is free on iOS, Android, and Windows, and there’s even an easy-to-follow PicsArt tutorial to walk you through the steps. Give it a go and send a gust of glowing neon weather blowing through your hometown.

This post was provided by PicsArt, a mobile photo editing app that provides people with a canvas for creating, collaborating, and exploring. With a full creative suite for photo editing, PicsArt makes it easy to create beautiful images, no matter where you are.(dpe)

Much like web design, photography too has its share of trends and techniques that keep coming in vogue or falling out of favor. With the role of photography rising, not just in a real-life capture of memories but as a viable medium for creating images for the web, certain photography trends seem to be dominating the scene.

What are the major photography trends that will be extremely popular in 2016? In this article, we attempt to find an answer to this question.

Black and White

Ok, black and white is not a recent innovation in the world of photography. In fact, photographers have been using black and white as a medium to enhance and amplify their photos for decades now. So why are we listing it as a recent trend?

Well, the trend is not “black and white” in itself, but the approach that black and white photography has adopted and is adopting of late. To begin with, black and white photography seems to have evolved the “absence” of color concept to showcase a varied list of things: solitude and sadness to even compassion and mercy.

Similarly, black and white photography is now being used more and more to exhibit modern lifestyle: possibly the busy lives that we lead and the concrete jungles that we build.

The Role of Animals

Wildlife photography has been a popular genre in the past few years. In 2016, there is one trend that seems to be ever on the rise: animal photography, which may or may not have to deal with wildlife.

Domesticated and pet animals are now becoming a mainstay of photography, with more and more photographers clicking images of animals — most particularly, cats, dogs, and horses.

You might also attribute this to the ever-increasing number of semi-professional and amateur photographers, who find it easy to click photos of pets that they have in their nearby locations, as opposed to professional photographers who might shoot images in a wildlife safari.

Design Patterns

Minimalism has gained many adherents in followers in web design. However, in the past few months and heading strong into 2016, photography trends seem to be speaking a different story: the rise of patterns in photographs!

Multiple layers of patterns and bright colors are gaining popularity as a photography trend; this is in stark contrast to the world of web design or other forms of art, wherein minimalism is still prominent.

What can be the reason behind this trend? Refer to the first point above; in the world of photography, whatever scope minimalism seems to have, has been captured by black and white photography. More often than not, whitespace either finds itself in a black and white photo or is replaced by vivid colors in a brightly colored photograph. Thus, minimalist photography seems to be becoming a sub-genre of black and white photography; whereas design patterns and bright colors are creating a niche of their own.

Inanimate Objects in Still Life Photography

Generally restricted to artwork, still life is now an extremely prominent genre of photography, and in 2016, this is probably going to be the most prevailing photography trend.

But unlike art on canvas, still life photography seems to be steering towards inanimate objects: portraits and human or animal forms are diminishing regarding popularity, but still life photos of non-living objects: furniture, gadgets and table-tops — is ever on the rise.

One extremely popular trend is the photography of gadgets, generally mobile phones or tablets and laptops, and you can find such photography samples on virtually every major photography website or outlet out there.

Neon Landscapes

If the past few years were the years of Bokeh Photography, 2016 is surely going to be the year of neon landscapes in photography.

Thanks to the easy availability of photo editing tools and applications, neon landscapes have become a very popular trend in photography, and you will not have a hard time finding it in good use. Furthermore, add to it the fact that such landscape images do very well on Instagram or Pinterest, and you will easily understand why many young photographers are leaning towards neon-colored landscape photography, be it the sunset, beach or the night sky.

Conclusion

Photography is an ever-evolving form of art, and what is popular today might fall out of favor tomorrow. That said, certain trends just refuse to die out, as we can see from the manner in which photographers keep experimenting with and modifying black and white photography.

Thanks to better quality camera phones and the cheaper availability of DSLRs, more and more folks are turning towards photography. Of course, a good camera phone can transform you into someone who takes good selfies, but not necessarily into a good photographer. But the evolution of photography trends of late surely has been influenced by the easy access to cameras and photo editing apps.

What do you think of these photography trends for 2016? Share your views in the comments below!

]]>https://www.noupe.com/inspiration/photography/photography-trends-2016-94902.html/feed3Say Cheeeese: Seven of the Best WordPress Plugins for Photo Blogshttps://www.noupe.com/wordpress/say-cheeeese-seven-of-the-best-wordpress-plugins-for-photo-blogs-89401.html
https://www.noupe.com/wordpress/say-cheeeese-seven-of-the-best-wordpress-plugins-for-photo-blogs-89401.html#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2015 12:00:13 +0000http://www.noupe.com/?p=89401Which photographer hasn’t ever thought about running a photo blog with WordPress for the sake of simplicity? WordPress provides a gallery function since version 2.5. However, this is very basic and surely doesn’t meet the requirements of more than semi-amateur photographers. Those who want to pursue their hobby in a more professional way expect more than that. Therefore, we’ll show you some really useful plugins for photo enthusiasts.

What’s Important for Photographers

As photo blogs focus almost entirely on images, correct editing is essential to avoid large file sizes. Your website’s loading performance will appreciate your efforts. Equally important are the so-called Exif data which give a lot of information about your photos. Exif data are stored in the image files and can therefore be read by plugins. They can contain information about:

Date and time the photo was shot

Aperture

Shutter speed

ISO speed (light sensitivity)

Exposure mode

Orientation (image rotation of 90, 180, or 270°)

These data make the image much more interesting. That’s why, many (semi)professional photographers wish to see the Exif data. In the end it all comes down to a good presentation, and again you can make use of some very good plugins to ease the workflow.

1.) – Force Regenerate Thumbnails

Many WordPress themes allow to set the size of thumbnails. When you upload an image, several alternative images sizes are generated in the background which are then delivered in the appropriate size to the visitor rather than displaying only large images. This saves you a lot of traffic and makes sense. If you change your theme, chances are good that the generated image sizes won’t fit anymore. Therefore, new image sizes should be generated and old ones deleted as they don’t fit to the new theme.

That’s where Force Regenerate Thumbnails comes into play. The plugin generates automatically the thumbnail sizes set in the theme and deletes the old ones which don’t fit anymore.

2.) – Exifography

Exifography reads the Exif data of the images. This data is provided to the photographer who can decide which information he wants to be published in his blog posts. The Exif data can be automatically integrated into the theme or made visible via shortcode.

4.) – Auto Post Thumbnail

Auto Post Thumbnail combs your articles and automatically sets the first image in the article as post thumbnail if no thumbnail is set. When you work with images, these features come in handy as you don’t have to set thumbnails manually.

5.) – WP Smush.it

WP Smush.it reduces the file size of the images without compromising the image quality. The big advantage is the improved loading performance as only images with an optimized size are loaded. The plugin also features a bulk optimizer which edits saved images in one go. You should run this bulk optimizer right after the installation. Each new picture, however, will be optimized in the background during the upload automatically .

6.) – 2 Image Galleries as Add-on

NextGEN Gallery

The NextGEN Gallery is surely one of the most popular and most used gallery plugins for WordPress. It handles large file sizes and numbers without any problem. The batch function makes the upload easy. The pro version currently costs $79 and offers a few more display options.

Envira Gallery (Lite)

The Envira Gallery (Lite) is promoted as the fastest, easiest, and most efficient gallery. It allows you to create galleries for articles and sites. You can create global galleries to be used anywhere on the site. It creates responsive galleries, lightboxes out of the box, and uses AJAX to reload images asynchronously which improves the loading performance of your website.

Conclusion

As you see, WordPress has a lot to offer for hobbyists as well as (semi)professional photographers. A beautiful photo blog profits massively from a bit of research in the WordPress plugin directory and the right theme.

]]>https://www.noupe.com/wordpress/say-cheeeese-seven-of-the-best-wordpress-plugins-for-photo-blogs-89401.html/feed7The Ultimate List of Completely Free Images: 43 Handpicked Serviceshttps://www.noupe.com/inspiration/photography/the-ultimate-list-of-completely-free-images-43-handpicked-services-89011.html
https://www.noupe.com/inspiration/photography/the-ultimate-list-of-completely-free-images-43-handpicked-services-89011.html#commentsSun, 08 Mar 2015 14:00:43 +0000http://www.noupe.com/?p=89011Completely free images can be very useful. Unfortunately, they’re hard to find as you’re often confronted with fees or abstruse licenses. If you don’t follow the license terms, you might receive a cease-and-desist letter sooner than you’d wish to. And who’d ever wish for one?! That’s why, we searched the web for the best sources of completely free images which can be used without naming the author or source, being also suitable for commercial purposes, including customer projects. This is especially important for bloggers and writers as articles are almost unthinkable without images; at the same time, they don’t justify high follow-up costs. So, have a look at our list of images that are royalty-free and completely free of any charge or duty.

Short Introduction

In my opinion, free-to-use images are only free if they don’t require a backlink to the author or the website you got them from. There are situations where you easily forget about the copyright, may it be because you got the pictures the day before you use them, or simply because of stress. A forgotten backlink drastically increases the danger of facing unwanted consequences. This is exactly what we want to spare you. None of the following image providers requires a backlink. They can be used freely and without source link.

You may miss this or that provider with big names. This is simply because you can’t use their photos without backlink. But that’s what this list is about.

By the way: Of course, the author or website operator would appreciate a link to their website. You can, of course, do so, you just don’t have to.

Searchable Image Database

The following providers offer comfortable access to all images because of a more or less sophisticated search function which allows you to search, for example, by categories, tags, or a free text search. We added sample photos from websites which don’t require a registration to give you an idea of the quality. For SEO reasons, the images are cut to size and reduced to 80% of the quality.

This provider specializes on photos that can be attributet to a certain color. You can search by colors which is handy for web designers. The photos are in high resolution. Registration is not required to download the images.

Pickup Image offers mainly nature images in different resolutions. A membership is required to download the images. You can, however, download the images via “View” button without registration. Click on “View”, then right-click on the image, and choose “Save as”.

re:splashed has access to the image database of Unsplashed (see tip 31). The only difference between these two providers is the searchability of re:splashed. Good images can be downloaded in high resolution. Registration is not required to download the images.

UPICM is one of the small providers. Good images are in high resolution. Not all images are fit for a king, though. Registration is not required to download the images.

Sample photo:

Non-Searchable Providers with Appealing Photos

Not every photo database out there is searchable which doesn’t mean, however, that the providers don’t offer great images. Sometimes the search takes a bit longer but you’ll be rewarded with first-class photos.

Unsplash offers 10 new images every 10 days. You can view and download older images. New images can be sent to your email address. All images are of superb quality and offer high resolution. Registration is not required.

Crow the stone is a small provider, very similar to Unsplash; however, the photo quality is not as good. Photos can be downloaded in high resolution without registration. Though, only a few of them are of good quality.

Epicantus is a provider for high-resolution photos designed for landing pages and hero backgrounds. There are plenty of good and interesting photos. Registration is not required to download the images.

Life of Pics is a continuously updated image database offering some outstanding photos. As of late, you can roughly search the database via the menu item “Gallery”. All images are in high resolution. Registration is not required to download the images.

Snapographic is a small provider with interesting photos for certain scopes. The landscape photos suit well for hero backgrounds as they can be downloaded in very high resolutions. A registration is required to download the images.

This small provider offers a really interesting selection of photos relating to startups. All images can be downloaded in high resolutions without registration.

Sample photo:

Conclusion

This extensive list should help you finding the right photo. It shows that you don’t have to spend money on really good images. All you need is a little bit of time for the search. I’ve already saved my favorites from this list. Anyway, all 43 providers offer decent photos.

Additional Related Links

We’ve already covered some of these providers in detail (Pexels, Titania, Gratisography, etc.). Other articles are just an addition or another free source of good images. Some providers are not listed in this article (e.g. Magdeleine) because some of their pictures require to name the author.

]]>https://www.noupe.com/inspiration/photography/the-ultimate-list-of-completely-free-images-43-handpicked-services-89011.html/feed8Enjoy Inspiration: Best Design Practices Dailyhttps://www.noupe.com/inspiration/showcases/enjoy-inspiration-best-design-practices-daily-86889.html
https://www.noupe.com/inspiration/showcases/enjoy-inspiration-best-design-practices-daily-86889.html#commentsThu, 08 Jan 2015 14:00:46 +0000http://www.noupe.com/?p=86889Creative workers need a mixture of different fuels. But one of the more important parts of this composite is inspiration. Inspiration is, of course, everywhere. Then again, sitting away long office hours cuts you from natural sources of inspiration and throws you back into virtuality. If you are like me, you’ll be happy about each new source of inspiration reachable from inside the cubicles of the world. And if this source of inspiration is a curated collection of best design practices, the better…

Enjoy Inspiration, Curated in Macedonia

Enjoy Inspiration is not a new site. It has already seen a few incarnations in the past. So, if you think you know the project, visit it anyway. Iko Kostadinov and his team from 32 Seconds Media just revamped the whole site and made it an inspiration in itself. 32 Seconds Media know what they are talking about. Established in 2009 in the European city of Skopje in Macedonia as a digital design agency, they have, thus far, processed almost 600 projects for clients world-wide. With this experience behind them, they are surely qualified to decide whether a design product or project is worth being shown as an inspiration or not.

Enjoy Inspiration as a site focusses on different fields of design. It delivers rundowns of state-of-the-art websites as well as logos and graphics. It serves as a source of inspiration for photography, packaging design and even interior designs of hotels and restaurants. It is a go-to site for all things beautiful.

Enjoy Books: Inspiration in the Form of Free Ebooks

Starting from this year, the makers will offer additional ebooks on their major topics. The first one, Enjoy Logo Vol.1 is already available at the most radical price of all. Simply navigate to this page and download the PDF for free. If you want, you can subscribe to the newsletter as they’ll ask you to. In this case, the download link will be delivered to your inbox. The above-mentioned page allows you to download the ebook without that detour.

Enjoy Logo Vol. 1 features dozens of logos on all in all 30 pages. The creation and thought process behind the featured logos are explained, and their makers shortly introduced. The uncomplicated freebie is a welcome addition to any logo designer’s collection, so make sure you don’t miss it.

The next ebook in the Enjoy collection will be Enjoy Web Vol. 1 following the same concepts. Whether you visit Enjoy Inspiration for the books or the site itself. Inspiration will be with you…

(dpe)

]]>https://www.noupe.com/inspiration/showcases/enjoy-inspiration-best-design-practices-daily-86889.html/feed1Creative Vandalism: Urban Street Art in Czech Republichttps://www.noupe.com/inspiration/photography/creative-vandalism-urban-street-art-in-czech-republic-86184.html
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 14:00:21 +0000http://www.noupe.com/?p=86184Considered to be an act of vandalism, defacement and even a despicable crime, Graffiti is a controversial type of art that, as a matter of fact, has already managed to win over numerous artists and spectators and has amassed a large army of minions and fans. While authorities and communities hotly debate about pros and cons of this urban branch of creative activity, being divided into two camps, its followers produce splendid and impressive artworks, which enlighten city streets and breathe new life into old, abandoned wastelands. Of course, not every piece is a masterpiece or even worth attention. There are lots of naïve, simple-minded and unremarkable examples of the modern variation of the ancient rock painting. However, there is still much to admire.

What is more, this kind of art is closely linked to social and political life as well as current events, so that there are cases when creatives employ this direction in order to vividly and graphically express their opinions and convey feelings and emotions. Depending on the country the street art can vary, and today we are going to take a look at urban art in the Czech Republic.

]]>SkitterPhoto: One Free Commercial-use Photo per Dayhttps://www.noupe.com/inspiration/photography/skitterphoto-one-free-commercial-use-photo-per-day-85742.html
Mon, 10 Nov 2014 14:00:17 +0000http://www.noupe.com/?p=85742SkitterPhoto offers commercial-use photos of high resolution and quality. If you kindly ask them, they might even give you the RAWs for free. SkitterPhoto is a project by three photographers from the Netherlands. More than 250 images are already in stock. The promise is to add at least one new picture a day. These images then "skitter" through the web, driven by the CC0 license, allowing anyone to use the images freely for any purpose.

SkitterPhoto: Public Domain at its Best

The makers of SkitterPhoto claim to have taken all the available photos with their own hands (and cameras). They offer them for completely free under the terms of CC0 or Public Domain, even. This allows the user to take the pictures and create whatever needs to be created. Backlinks and other attributions are unnecessary, with donations being happily accepted. The latter is not mandatory, however.

The images themselves are of high quality and available in very large resolutions of up to 24 megapixels. The weight is between ten and twenty megabytes per picture, which is certainly not a problem in times of high-bandwidth traffic..

The spectrum of subjects mirrors the interests and the wanderlust of the photographers. No wonder that you will not find a broad variety of topics comparable to the giant stock photo sellers. What you’ll find are originals with a heart, in quite some cases just generic enough to be suitable for general illustration purposes and in others not. .

SkitterPhoto: Still Manageable While Getting a Little Clunky Already

The website that offers all these really beautiful pictures is underwhelming, however. Sure, the galleries are clean and modern in regard to their layout. Lazy Load cares for loading the images only as soon as they enter the browser’s viewport, thus keeping things smooth and fast. On hover, you can see the image titles and on click you enter the detail page of any given image.

The detail page offers a larger preview of the chosen photo accompanied by info regarding the photographer and the image’s title. You can immediately download the pic or tweet it around your followership. Two large back and forth buttons to the left and to the right side of the browser window allow for directly navigating to the next as well as the previous image. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, the detail page offers no further information to classify the pictures. Others show their EXIF data here, at least let you know the camera and resolution they used. SkitterPhoto does not offer any of these informations. In their defense let me add that the downloaded photos did actually contain the unchanged EXIF data. Anyway, one shouldn’t have to have to download all the photos just to be able to see vital info. A good plugin would be useful here…

The creators of SkitterPhoto decided to establish nine categories into which all the imagery would have to be sorted. We have Flora, Fauna, Landscapes, People, and Transportation, and also Low Light, HDR, and Miscellaneous. Various photos belong to more than one category which made it hard for me to actually count the number of unique pictures contained. There is no further ordering system in place, not even tags.

Besides the more or less classical three-columns gallery view on Lazy Load, let me direct your attention to the section "Popular Photos". This section shows how impressive the presentation of the images could have been. Using a Masonry grid and different image sizes, this section gives you an idea of how modern SkitterPhoto could have looked throughout the whole service. It’s a real bummer…

By the way; there is no search feature whatsoever. At the time being this can be dealt with. But think of 1,000 and many more photos on the platform. From four figures on the categories won’t be of much help, either. A search function will become inevitable.

Of course, one could bring forward the old saying of the gift horse that should never be looked into the mouth and proclaim that criticizing open source is an impertinence in itself. Yet, this has never been my point of view. Free services and open source in general are not created in the spirit of "take it or leave it". Instead, they are looking for attention, take up my time. Especially my time is the single most valuable possession I have. I do expect that others treat my time with respect as much as I treat their projects with respect.

TLDR: SkitterPhoto is a new project by three ambitioned photographers from the Netherlands. Get convinced by the overall quality and high resolutions these pictures sport. As all of the photos can be used completely free of charge for personal and commercial projects alike, there is not a lot to put against it. In any case; add it to your toolbox. Noupe says: All thumbs up…